What I liked
I REMEMBER Sophie Tucker—-o-l-d when I was a lad, an old walrus with only three notes left who showed up yearly on the Ed Sullivan Sunday variety show. THIS Sophie, physically “formidable”, is F-U-N—-from diving into raunchy vaudeville songs that Sophie rode to fame and fortune, shifting midway into a unique and unforgettable personal confessional (with zero inhibitions about age and weight), leading to an unexpected socko ending that jerks its tears justifiably. What a show! What a Talent!
What I didn't like
Something’s missing: not a word about Mae West, who was only a very few years behind Sophie yet had the longer career Sophie probably deserved; not a word about her brief stint @ MGM during the Depression; and no mention of the not-so-good times that followed her triumph in Vaudeville, when it ended!
AND Laurel Meade, an Academic who just moonlights as a Vaudeville SuperStar, DOESN’T look like Sophie. She looks like KATE SMITH, another “formidable” femme with a huge song catalog who also had a bigger career than Sophie! How I’d like to see her tackle THAT part, though it probably has no resonance for her!
My overall impression
A century-old (and more) Vaudeville headliner, forgotten in the wake of her successors (“formidable” femmes like MAE WEST and KATE SMITH, who go unmentioned) gets resurrected by an Academic who’s moonlighting as a Vaudeville SuperStar—-and makes it work 110%! (Rumor has it that this 75-minutes was “out-of-town” at the Gardenia Club for a year, and it shows in the pro patina with which it’s performed by LAUREL MEADE and her pianist, FRED CASSIDY.) The Right Costume helps, and so does LAUREL/SOPHIE’s Audience Engagement facility.